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Cold based Builds
belaz50
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
Any good cold builds out there?
I have been looking through all the powers and abilities from the last beta weekend. http://nwowiki.co/index.php?title=Control_Wizard is the info which seems pretty close as far as I can remember what was there.
Anyway I have been trying to come up with a really solid cold damage based build (none of that arcane stuff) to try and maximize the chill and freeze effects.
With no cold based Paragon path it really doesn't make for much choice when building for cold. In fact you seem to have to "waste" a few feat and paragon points when climbing the trees to get to the only decent cold buffing options. There really isn't an optimal cold build that compares to what you can build with arcane. I am not even really finding any mixed builds that I really like as all around builds, at least that have the nice synergies that full arcane and its powers can have.
I am disappointed that arcane feels so much more fleshed out and cold is stuck in the corner with the dunce cap on.
I guess its down the arcane trail until they release a cold based paragon path? So sad
I have been looking through all the powers and abilities from the last beta weekend. http://nwowiki.co/index.php?title=Control_Wizard is the info which seems pretty close as far as I can remember what was there.
Anyway I have been trying to come up with a really solid cold damage based build (none of that arcane stuff) to try and maximize the chill and freeze effects.
With no cold based Paragon path it really doesn't make for much choice when building for cold. In fact you seem to have to "waste" a few feat and paragon points when climbing the trees to get to the only decent cold buffing options. There really isn't an optimal cold build that compares to what you can build with arcane. I am not even really finding any mixed builds that I really like as all around builds, at least that have the nice synergies that full arcane and its powers can have.
I am disappointed that arcane feels so much more fleshed out and cold is stuck in the corner with the dunce cap on.
I guess its down the arcane trail until they release a cold based paragon path? So sad
Post edited by belaz50 on
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I'm not sure about an entire build, but I messed around a bit during BWE4 with Icy Terrain + Spell Mastery Conduit of Ice. The Icy Terrain immobilizes enemies in the initial hit of the skill, and slowly applies chill stacks with the DoT. Conduit of Ice on Tab also added chill stacks to the enemies each time they're hit by it (along with increasing the damage it does for each chill stack) and both of them combined resulted in an AoE freeze after a couple of seconds.
From what I saw in the CW forum it seemed most players didn't like all the Ice powers. Mostly, I figure, because they wanted to play a War Wizard casting lightning and fireballs all around like a WoW Mage. At first I wasn't a fan either, but after watching some youtube videos of CWs in action it grew on me. Logically, too, the Control Wizard would focus on Ice and Air powers to disable their enemies, and the War Wizard would focus on Fire and Earth powers to blast foes into oblivion (covering all four Traditional Elements).
It's surprising to hear it's so difficult to specialize in Ice magic. Seemed like that was the original intent of the CW. I hope you'll stick with the concept anyway, as I'm sure come Open Beta they'll have reworked the Power Point and Feat systems some more. People have been complaining about it enough, I'm sure they've noticed.
Out of the 27 paragon feats there are:
15 feats that have something to do with cold powers/chills
7 feats that have something to with arcane powers
3 feats that have something to with lightning powers (1 in each tree)
9 general feats
Majority of feats in the Oppressor and the Thaumaturge tree have something to do with cold powers including both of the last feats.
Even in the Renegade tree there are only 3 feats for arcane powers.
Yeah you are right there are plenty of cold feats around, but they don't stack or they don't do much more than add once stack of chill. Seems weak for the point investment maybe?
Plus it feels like you have to spend points in things that don't directly affect your 4 encounter powers and maybe that is the problem, no choices for cold damage. Maybe its the fact that the oppressor tree looks extremely weak and boring? I don't know, it just feels like I am wasting points somewhere picking up things that affect arcane in some way or making lighting chill things somehow.
It might also be that a couple of the cold based abilities rarely get used, in fact I have never seen anyone use Icy Rays and that is a bit bothersome, does it suck that badly? Chill strike also seems to get removed from bars fairly quickly due to damage or cast time or recharge time, who knows.
I am just saying that I can build a few nice looking/feeling storm builds that I feel would be all around decent and you wouldn't be wasting points on cold based things. You can swap around arcane encounters as needed, like using repel for pvp.
Every cold build I look at feels boring or bland or like I am wasting points somewhere on things that will never affect the 4 cold encounters or the two cold dailies. It just seems that its the lack of options that hinders any cold builds I can come up with.
Yes, Icy Rays is kinda horrible. Chill Strike on the other hand is a very good ranged AoE in the Tab slot, and seemed to be used by the majority of CW's.
I can actually see some really good builds focusing on Cold. You'll be extremely limited if you restrict yourself to using 100% Cold powers and never anything else, but that's the case with Arcane as well (only 1 At-Will).
Here's an example, a group-based AoE powerhouse: Take the Wizard's Wrath Heroic feat. Go down the Thaumaturge tree, taking Destructive Wizardry, Snap Freeze and Frozen Power Transfer. Arcane Singularity and Ice Storm/Ice Knife as your Dailies. Storm Pillar and Chilling Cloud as your At-Wills. Chill Strike in your Tab slot, and whatever Encounters you like. Evocation as one of your passives.
When Arcane Singularity is available (or you have any other way of gathering enemies together), you can absolutely destroy groups of adds with the following combo:
Arcane Singularity, gathering things together and holding them still.
One round of Chilling Cloud, buffing your damage by 5% for each enemy in the Singularity on the 3rd hit.
Storm Pillar, buffing your damage by another 10%.
Wait, or use any Powers that don't add/maintain stacks of Chill*, until the enemies are no longer chilled from Chilling Cloud.
Tabbed Chill Strike for truly incredible AoE damage, due to +6% AoE damage, +15% AoE damage, +20% Cold damage on non-chilled targets, +10% damage from Storm Pillar, and however much damage Chilling Cloud gave (+50% for 10 mobs, as an example).
The way things seemed to stack through my testing in BW3 would give (1 * 1.21 * 1.2 * 1.6 = ) 232.32% damage (with 10 mobs) on Chill Strike, which is already pretty powerful. Now imagine if it crits. :rolleyes:
*This is a perfect opportunity to be even better with a hybrid build; use Steal Time here, and have Arcane Presence as your second passive. This will give 5 stacks of Arcane Mastery for another +15% Cold damage - now 261.36% total Chill Strike damage - while also doing great AoE damage and stunning mobs.
Yep, I'll definitely go with that one. In a normal encounter slot with some random build it doesn't seem special but if you know what you are doing, it's hilarious.
The funniest thing about chill strike is that you can get its cd down to about 7 secs easily on lv60. That's crazy for an instant cast, high dmg + stun aoe.
And yes, icy rays is totally useless. Basically any other power is better than that one.
Check out my build, Ice is great for keeping large groups CC'd while putting out big numbers.
That is why Thaumaturge's Snap Freeze is a must have. Gives all your cold spells a 20% increase in damage vs anything not effected by chill. Thaumaturge also gives all of your cold encounter spells a DoT of 30% of your weapon damage.
2 cont. action
3 wep mastery
5 fight on
3 blight power
2 arc mastery
5 Learned Spellcaster
Bitter Cold 5 You gain 1/2/3/4/5% increased damage after afflicting an enemy with Chill. (This bonus lasts 6 seconds and does not stack)
Critical Power 5 When you land a critical hit you gain 1/2/3/4/5% of your total Action Point. (10 second cooldown)
Tempest Magic 5 When your target is below 30% max Hit Points you deal an additional 2/4/6/8/10% damage
Snap Freeze 5 Your Cold powers deal an additional 4/8/10/16/20% damage to targets who are not affected by Chill - (since some bosses aren't chillable)
Malevolent Surge 5 When you kill a foe you gain 2/4/6/8/10% more damage for each foe you kill. Stacks up to 3 times, lasts 4 seconds
Transcended Master 5 Shard of Endless Avalanche deals an additional 3/6/9/12/15% damage. (Icy Rays deals an additional 4/8/12/16/20% damage if cast on the same target twice)
Assailing Force 1 Your Conduit of Ice power now reduces the Mitigation of affected targets by 15%
Slotted PVE powers:
MMissle
RoFrost
Tab: Conduit of ice (adds chill stack to everything - Procs 5% more damage / 15% less damage mitigation to mobs)
SoEAvalanche
Ray of Enfeeblement
Icy Rays
Tab Passives:
Chilling Presence
Eye of the Storm
Daily:
Ice Storm
Ice Knife
PVP:
Mostly the same just switch Avalanche Shard for Entangling Force. Then swap Conduit of Ice from the Tab'd position with Icy Rays. You basically want to nuke your targets while conduit is lowering their mitigation by 15%. Once's you've lined up debuffs / chills you can see Icy Rays hit almost as hard as your daily. 4 pc pvp gear bonus is 25% time duration off your tab target power which is baller.
Build benefits:
Works great in PVE and PVP with pretty extreme damage. Pretty easy to go more control if needed as well.
Agree 100% about snap freeze but for me instead of the 30% dot I buffed shard and IRays. My Icy Rays crits between 8-15k depending on how debuffed a mob is.